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Sagnac Interferometer Enhanced Particle Tracking in Optical Tweezers

Optics 2015-05-19 v1

Abstract

A setup is proposed to enhance tracking of very small particles, by using optical tweezers embedded within a Sagnac interferometer. The achievable signal-to-noise ratio is shown to be enhanced over that for a standard optical tweezers setup. The enhancement factor increases asymptotically as the interferometer visibility approaches 100%, but is capped at a maximum given by the ratio of the trapping field intensity to the detector saturation threshold. For an achievable visibility of 99%, the signal-to-noise ratio is enhanced by a factor of 200, and the minimum trackable particle size is 2.4 times smaller than without the interferometer.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1006.0777,
  title  = {Sagnac Interferometer Enhanced Particle Tracking in Optical Tweezers},
  author = {M. A. Taylor and J. Knittel and M. T. L. Hsu and H. -A. Bachor and W. P. Bowen},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1006.0777},
  year   = {2015}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-21T15:31:51.126Z